Tag Archives: Employee Satisfaction

May 2, 2017 · 4:00 am

Culture and Compensation

PayScale has produced its 8th annual in-depth report on compensation best practices: Comp is Culture. If you have anything to do with paying people – so, that’s virtually every manager, everywhere – reading this report will be well worth your time. Even though I’m not an HR professional, much less a compensation professional, I found it fascinating. Especially the impact that compensation practices have on organization culture.

The report is based on responses gathered in November and December, 2016 from 7,700 respondents, of which 5,136 were in the U.S. and 641 in Canada (as well as respondents in Australia, India, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and others);12% were Enterprise organizations’ (5,000+) employees, 13% Large organizations’ (750-4,999) employees, 29% Mid-sized organizations’ (100 – 749) employees, and 46% Small organizations’(1-99) employees.

Not surprisingly, the report identifies the following ass the biggest talent- and culture-related challenges in 2017:

  • Finding and growing great talent
  • Employee retention/engagement – large number of retirements anticipated in 2017 as well as continued millennial job-hopping
  • Competition from younger stage tech startups
  • Hiring and retaining the right employees in the face of high growth
  • The fierce talent competition shifting the balance of power to candidates
  • Improving company culture and fighting attrition for newly trained employees

The picture here is clear:  the war for talent hasn’t abated. In fact, in may just be beginning in earnest.

As it relates to pay practices and culture, the PayScale research found the following:

  • When it comes to pay, only 20 percent of employees said they were paid fairly, whereas 44 percent of employers said that their employees were fairly paid.
  • In a similar vein, employers were significantly more inclined to say their employees were appreciated at work (64 percent), whereas only 45 percent of employees said they felt appreciated at work.
  • A question around pay transparency revealed more of the same – 31 percent of employers said their company had a transparent pay policy, whereas only 23 percent of employees agreed.

There are a number of discussions and supporting graphs to keep even the most nerdy among us engaged, but these discussions and graphs are also easily understood and the information flows simply and logically. There’s a lot here, and it’s all good.

Being focused on all things relating to organization culture and leadership’s impact on it, I found the following chart very interesting:

There are two points here that are worth pondering if you think the data might apply to your organization:

  1. The percentage of respondents in both the employees and employers categories who agree or strongly agree on all five statements is higher than might be expected, with the exception of the final statement.
  2. Only one statement has a higher percentage of agreement from employees than from employers – and it’s the statement about the state of the employer/employee relationship. Employees report that their relationship with their manager is stronger than the managers report. With rising turnover and many organizations struggling to increase retention, who saw that coming?

This report covers the waterfront in terms of compensation practices, their impact on culture, and employees’ perception of many of the aspects of their pay. There are a number of surprising nuggets of information that could impact your organization’s compenation practices. It’s not an easy read, but it’s a good read. I recommend you spend some time with it.

 

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Filed under China Gorman, Compensation, Culture, Data Point Tuesday, Employee Experience, Employee Satisfaction, HR, HR Data, PayScale, Performance Management

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February 21, 2017 · 4:00 am

Got Culture?

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Gallup’s State of the American Workplace report is out. It’s a lot of information (214 pages!). But it’s important information and you’ll enjoy the most current data from this global collector and analyzer of work related data.

We talk about employee engagement – or some other euphemism for connecting with employees in a human, caring way – all the time. We get at our data through the famous surveys from organizations like Gallup, Great Place to Work™, Quantum Workplace, or Workplace Dynamics – or any of a hundred other providers of culture measurement and strengthening solutions. And we compete in geographical and industry competitions all over the world to claim one of the top spots in great organizational culture lists. All of this to attract and retain world class employees.

I’m a big believer that culture trumps most every other organizational dynamic in the war for talent, innovation, profitability, top line growth, competitiveness and any other thing you might measure. I’ve been quoted frequently as saying that “strong, positive  cultures improve everything we measure that we want to go up, as well as reducing everything we measure that we want to go down.” And it’s true. But intentionally creating and managing the right kind of culture is getting more difficult as the world gets more and more complex: 4 or 5 generations in the workplace; Big Data and Artificial Intelligence; globalization; nationalism; terrorism; population growth; global warming – the list of external dynamics – some might say threats – impact  our organizations’ success as well as how we relate with our employees seems to grow every day.

So, I appreciate organizations that collect data, make sense of it, and then make it available to all of us. I appreciate them a lot. And Gallup does a better job than most. This report, State of the American Workplace, has a ton of interesting data in it. You probably don’t want to read it in one sitting, but you do want to read it all.

In the executive summary, the report lays out the roadmap for leaders to follow in creating organization sustainability:

  • design and deliver a compelling and authentic employer brand
  • take employee engagement from a survey to a cultural pillar that improves performance
  • approach performance management in ways that motivate employees
  • offer benefits and perks that influence attraction and retention
  • enable people to work successfully from locations besides the office
  • construct office environments that honor privacy while encouraging collaboration
  • improve clarity and communication for employees who work on multiple teams

Sounds simple, I know; but any leader who has tried to create a stronger culture knows that this is hard stuff. It’s 3 steps forward, 2 steps back stuff. And Gallup has the data to back it up.

The executive summary ends with this:

“The one thing leaders cannot do is nothing. They cannot wait for trends to pass them by, and they cannot wait for millennials to get older and start behaving like baby boomers.”

The chapters are mini culture theses in themselves:

  1. U.S. workers: increasingly confident and ready to leave
  2. Do employees want what your workplace is selling?
  3. The real truth about benefits and perks
  4. The competitive advantage of engaging your employees
  5. A shift in managing performance
  6. A closer look at the 12 elements of engagement
  7. Making sense of matrixed teams
  8. The changing place and space of work

I encourage you to delve into these chapters and consider the data, the analysis and the conclusions in each. In chapter 2, data are shared that might motivate you to reconsider how you think your employment candidates are evaluating your organization as a potential employer:

gallup-american-workplace-2017-1

Increase in income potential and a well-known brand are not as important as they once were. Did you know that?

There are a number of similar “ah-ha” data points in this report. They are easily accessible, simply constructed and are potential game changers as you think about your organization’s culture and its impact on your ability to retain and acquire the talent you need.

Download it here. I think you’ll gain surprising new insights.

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Filed under Big Data and HR, China Gorman, Company Culture, Data Point Tuesday, Employee Engagement, Employee Satisfaction, Gallup, Generations at work, HR Analytics, HR Data, HR Trends, Human Capital, Talent Analytics, Talent Management, Workplace Culture

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October 21, 2014 · 4:30 am

2014 World’s Best Multinational Workplaces: Trends for Thought

Data Point TuesdayHere at Great Place to Work we’re getting ready to reveal the 2014 World’s Best Multinational Workplaces list, so there seems like no better a time to talk about a positive organizational trend that’s been occurring among many of the less encouraging trends we consistently hear about (for example, the war on talent, low levels of employee engagement, or no work/life integration). The positive trend that I’m speaking, to be exact, is that levels of trust, camaraderie and pride are rising at the best workplaces – essentially, the world’s best workplaces are getting better. In recent years we’ve seen “the best” companies get better in the majority of the ~50 countries where we measure workplaces using our Trust Index© employee survey. Additionally, we have seen increasing trust at the companies that make up Great Place to Work®’s annual World’s Best Multinational Workplaces list.
trustindexchange2009-2014

The good news is that while this increase in trust trend is mostly notable within “best companies,” such positive culture changes are influencing other companies as well and helping to create a push towards a higher standard for organizations. The data discussed here comes from the decision to examine trust trends in individual countries and among the world’s best multinationals as we prepared our 4th annual World’s Best Multinational Workplaces list. In particular, we studied the Trust Index© scores of all the national Best Workplaces lists during the past five years. The Trust Index© is Great Place to Work®’s 58-statement employee survey that measures trust, pride and camaraderie in organizations.

Our research highlights seven reasons why trust is rising in great workplaces: awareness, evidence, Generation Y, employee gratitude, wellbeing, momentum, and transparency. Globally, company leaders have been demonstrating an increased awareness towards the importance of a high-trust workplace culture. Furthermore, we’re seeing increasingly more evidence published that great workplaces lead to better business results. For example, publicly traded companies on the U.S. Best Companies to Work For list have nearly doubled the performance of the stock market overall from 1997 to 2013 and a paper published earlier this year by the European Corporate Governance Institute which studied data from 14 countries, concluded that higher levels of employee satisfaction (reflected by earning a spot on a best workplaces list generated by Great Place to Work®) corresponded to stock market outperformance in countries with high levels of labor market flexibility, such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Millennial generation is also an influencer. Globally, this generation is demanding better workplaces and pushing employers to place more focus on both social responsibility and work/life integration. Employee gratitude also plays a big role in high-trust cultures. Best workplace environments reflect employee gratitude and reciprocation and aren’t solely about what management is doing for employees. This is especially true during trying times for companies. When one company’s culture may take a turn for the worse during economic hardships, organizations that take care of their employees amid such a time can create higher levels of trust. We can also point to the ‘wellbeing’ movement as an influencer of high trust levels at organizations. With people placing more and more emphasis on mental and physical wellness, in part due to high stress work environments at many organizations, great workplaces are embracing the wellbeing trend. Among the three Trust Index© scores that have risen most among the World’s Best Multinational Workplaces is this statement: “People are encouraged to balance their work life and their personal life.”

Momentum and transparency are the last of the seven key trends we have noted as influencers of high-trust at organizations. Momentum refers to the positive upward spiral that seems to occur (owing to both management and employees) once an organization develops a trust-based workplace culture. This is logical as a more trust-based culture often sees employees that are more active participants in culture related activities and hold a greater appreciate for their workplace. With the amount of new technologies (like social media) and personal mobile devices available, organizations are faced with an amount of unprecedented transparency. This transparency works in favor of organizations with great cultures and rewards them while providing a “public eye” and ample incentive for less than great organizations to step up. Another of the three Trust Index© scores that have risen most among the World’s Best Multinational Workplaces is this statement: “Management keeps me informed about important issues and changes.”

Check out a few “Fast Facts” about the World’s Best Multinational Workplaces 2014 below, and be sure to check back here on Thursday to see which companies made the list!

Fast Facts: The World’s Best Multinational Workplaces 2014

  • Since last year, industry distribution has changed significantly on the World’s Best list. IT and Telecommunications now makes up 40% of the industries, replacing Manufacturing and Production (28%) as the dominating industry. The variety of industries represented has shrunk from 8 industries in 2013 to just 6 this year:industrydistribution2014
  • Among the 2014 World’s Best Multinational Companies to Work For in 2014, “Pride” is distinguished as the main strength. “Camaraderie” ranks stronger than “Respect” in the Top 10 and the Top 5, while “Fairness” continues to be biggest opportunity area:2014 Dimension Scores
  • Since 2011, the main improvements made by the best multinationals in the world are:
    • Encouraging work-life balance,
    • Management keeping employees informed
    • Promotions based on merit.

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